Jeanne Only one story of bus/LRT to report. My neighbor used to take the 7(I think) to get to his job downtown. Now he takes the LRT and it is 15 minutes faster for him. He walks 2 extra blocks to get to the stop near his house, and loves it so far. Ron Leurquin Nokomis East
-----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Jeanne Massey Sent: Thursday, July 15, 2004 5:49 PM To: Minneapolis Issues Forum Subject: [Mpls] Bus route changes in response to LRT I am a supporter of LRT and am excited by it's initial success. I can't say the same for a friend of mine who is transit dependent. He is nearly blind and depends solely on the bus to get to and from work and other places. He does not live close enough to an LRT station to use it. According to him, the change in his bus (#14 running n/s on Bloomington Ave S. and e/w on 38th, now) to and from work is a halving in the frequency going n/s, from every 15 to 30 minutes, to allow the rerouting of the line to run e/w on 38th to feed LRT). This may not sound critical, but there is no other option for him (the nearest n/s route is Chicago Ave S.) and, thus, if he misses his bus, he waits another half hour. Car drivers don't like to wait that long in rush hour. My support for light rail aside, I've always shared the concern that light rail would potentially divert existing bus service to feed into light rail and, consequently, take critical service away from the existing bus system used by people dependent on bus transportation. I asked a staff person at the Met Council about bus route changes in response to light rail and got this response: "Recent bus route changes have improved service for most folks in your area. Granted, there are some people who are not pleased that they now must transfer or catch the bus from a new location. There's significantly more east-west service that provides neighborhood-to-neighborhood connections across 35W. Most north-south routes didn't change. Some improvements for Kingfield and East Harriet/Farmstead include: Rt 23 - Uptown-Hennepin-Bryant-38th Street LRT Station; greater frequency. Rt 46 - Grand to 46th Street LRT Station. Rt 53 - Lake St limited stop. Expect additional improvements with southbound service on I-494 and 35W. Before and after the changes, Metro Transit's operating budget was limited to $75.3 million of bus service in Sector 5. The changes were designed to make more efficient use of existing resources. However, due to a grant tied to LRT, Metro Transit has increased bus service by 6% in Sector 5." I live in Sector 5 and this is why the answer is focused on this bus area. I'm writing this piece with the hope of hearing about other people's experiences with recent bus changes, for better or worse. Anyone negatively or positively affected, or have friends that are? I think this is important information for MTC to hear. Jeanne Massey Kingfield REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
